2013 was a trying year for soul singer Sharon Jones.
Just months before the singer was scheduled to release her fifth album, Give
The People What They Want, she was diagnosed with cancer and forced to
cancel the release and her planned 2013 tour. The good news is she’s feeling
better and picking up where she left off this year, making up some of those
tour dates she canceled. Even better: Give
The People was worth the wait. It’s an ecstatic, party-friendly soul album that
captures the raw, James Brown-esque energy of Jones’ live show.

Between
The Buried and Me w/ Deafheaven, Intronaut and The Kindred @ The Rave,

7:30
p.m.

North Carolina’s Between the Buried and Me have
garnered praise for their heavy-as-hell prog-metal, which takes unlikely cues
from ’70s jazz and fusion. There’s a good chance, though, that a fair amount of
the crowd at this bill will be there for openers Deafhaven, the San Francisco
ensemble behind last year’s Sunbather,
one of the most acclaimed metal albums of the last decade. The record is
sprawling and beautiful, seeped in the crash-and-bang dynamics of post-rock. No
doubt in part because of that crossover appeal, the record placed highly on
year-end lists from dozens of publications, including Spin, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork and even NPR, an outlet not
usually known for its metal coverage.

Tripoli
Shrine Circus @ U.S. Cellular Arena, 7 p.m.

The Tripoli Shriners of Milwaukee have made a name
for themselves through their community service and support of the Shriners
Hospital for Children, but to many they’re best known for their annual circus.
Attractions include Polish-trained tigers and lions, a Romanian acrobatic duo,
a team of aerialists, a dance and rope-work troupe called the Georgettes Magic
Extravaganza, and enough clowns to entertain even the most hyperactive
children. And of course there will also be elephants, including the Mighty Bo,
the largest performing elephant on the planet. He knows more than 60 tricks.
(Multiple performances through Sunday, Mach 9.)

Friday,
March 7

The
Chieftains @ The Pabst Theater, 7 p.m.

For those who want to get a jump on celebrating St.
Patrick’s Day, The Chieftains offer this return to the Pabst Theater. Far and
away the most popular Irish folk act, at least to American audiences, this
long-running Dublin group popularized traditional Celtic music in part through
their collaborations with rock and pop artists like Van Morrison, Mick Jagger,
Roger Daltrey and Lyle Lovett. After more than 40 years performing together, The
Chieftains are still a top-shelf touring act, and they perform their ethereal,
largely instrumental Celtic pastiche to eager ears around the world.

Bay
View Wine Fest @ The Historic Marian Center, 6 p.m.

The Historic Marian Center hosts the 10th annual Bay
View Wine Fest, a fundraiser for the canine-rescue group Wisconsin Adopt A Golden
Retriever. The dress is casual, and the $30 admission includes wine and food
tasting, music and dancing and a chance to peruse and purchase art from Art
& Soul, a contemporary art gallery in Washington Heights. For serious wine
enthusiasts, a $65 premier wine tasting tickets includes an “International
Passport” flight, which included high-end wines selected by sommeliers Frank
Merenda of Merchants Di Vino, Brian Trupke of Madison’s Liliana’s Restaurant
and Jeff Cox of Wine Maniacs on the River.

Saturday,
March 8

Mike
Birbiglia @ The Pabst Theater, 6 and 8:30 p.m.

Mike Birbiglia is a very funny comedian, but his
true gift is storytelling. In his breakthrough one-man show Sleepwalk With Me, the sympathetic stand
up framed his career and relationship struggles around his unusual sleep
disorder, which once caused him to walk out of a second-story window. A 2012
film adaptation of that show produced by Ira Glass (of “This American Life,” to
which Birbiglia regularly contributes) raised the comedian’s profile
considerable. He followed up that success with another one-man show, My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend, which further
explored Birbiglia’s romantic travails and his impulse to destroy
relationships. Like Sleepwalk, the
show is being adapted into a film.

The
Sword w/ Big Business and O’Brother @ The Rave, 7 p.m.

Compared to the prog and experimental metal bands
that now dot the scene, The Sword are relative traditionalists. Their brand of
metal isn’t all that far removed from the hard rock that metal pioneers like
Black Sabbath and Blue Cheer introduced four decades ago, though the Austin
band is too smart to play into obvious retro tropes—their albums are grounded
in the past, but they still sound modern. Produced by J. Robbins, formerly of
Jawbox, the group’s latest album, 2012’s Apocryphon,
breaks from the linear narrative of the 2010 concept album Warp Riders to explore metaphysical themes about the nature of
being, but while the lyrics are vague, the riffs are as immediate and
hard-hitting as ever.

Bob
Weir and Ratdog @ The Riverside Theater, 6:30 p.m.

Perhaps more than any other Grateful Dead offshoot
band, Bob Weir and Ratdog closely guard the Dead’s legacy. With a rotating cast
of touring musicians, the former Dead guitarist makes sure to include some
choice Dead songs in each setlist, and peppers the rest of his sets with can’t-miss
covers (often of the very, very familiar variety) to ensure he wins over the
crowd each night. This kind of unabashed fan service has made them one of the
most successful touring acts on the jam circuit.

Sunday,
March 9

Miley
Cyrus w/ Icona Pop @ The BMO Harris Bradley Center, 7 p.m.

A lot has changed since Miley Cyrus last performed
at the Bradley Center in Oct. 2009. Back then Cyrus was a fresh-scrubbed Disney
starlet who had little idea who Jay-Z was, not the Robin Thicke-grinding,
tabloid-seeking missile she became last year after teaming with rap producer
Mike Will Made It on her latest album Bangerz.
Cyrus isn’t by any means the first tween icon to undergo a hyper-sexualized
makeover, but few have been quite so deft at stirring controversy. Cyrus set
out to put Hannah Montana behind her, and she certainly succeeded.

Tuesday,
March 11

Brett
Dennen w/ Foy Vance @
Turner Hall Ballroom, 7 p.m.

Since the music industry fell upon hard times,
having a tune featured in an ad campaign or hit television shows is one of the
quickest and most profitable ways for artists to promote themselves. It has
certainly worked for Brett Dennen, the sun-bleached songwriter whose whimsical
Cali-folk tunes have found a home on the soundtracks to shows like “Scrubs,”
“Grey’s Anatomy” and “House” (the hospital theme is probably coincidental). The
hard-touring 34-year-old’s 2011 album Loverboy
introduced a full backing band and, subsequently, a more danceable groove to
his music, but last year’s breezy Smoke
and Mirrors returned him to mostly acoustic sounds.

Poll

A Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission panel upheld the firing of former Milwaukee Police officer Christopher Manney for violating department rules last April when he encountered Dontre Hamilton before fatally shooting him. Do you agree with the commission’s decision?